Home again, home again. (また帰ったな。)

For possibly the last time; at least, the last time I will truly be able to call this my home.

Wow. Didn't mean to get all deep with the first line there. Seeing as how both my mother and grandmother have begun to tear up by this point, I suppose I'd better change the subject quickly.

Ahem.

I promised a Thursday return, and a Thursday return is what you'll get. However, don't go blaming me if today's post isn't up to my usual caliber of wit and astute social commentary; I'm never my best after a week on a lake with unusual sleep patterns and, as mentioned before, atypical bathing possibilities. 

...sometimes I wonder if I share a bit too much information on this blog.

Anyway.

While away, I of course thought of a few more e-mail options. Because really, what else do I have to do whilst lying awake, staring at the sandstone cliffs outside and wondering how close that last lightning strike actually was?

(Oh, I jest. My ribcage only shuddered with the strength of the thunder two or three times.)

Now let's see... what number were we on again...

13) the blind bandit

My lucky number! Which is appropriate, considering how much of a true fan-geek I will be revealed to be with this option...

And this one isn't even really Japan-related. Not technically or officially, anyway.

I mentioned my love for Avatar: The Last Airbender a few posts ago. (And don't be mistaken, dear readers; my love is for the television series, and anything even remotely related to M. Night Shamwow is not even worthy of sharing the title with that masterwork.) Well, this idea takes that love out into the world and shows it a good time.

... Yea. It's a stretched metaphor, but such is life.

Anyway. For those of you who don't understand the reference, "The Blind Bandit" is the wrestling name of my favorite character, Toph Bei Fong, who is, and I quote, "the bad-ass-est bad-ass who ever bad-assed."

(You know you're an academic when you start citing your own commentary.)

She's awesome.

But, uh, ultimately, kinda only tangentially related to the main (intended) topic of this blog. So we move on.

14) break damage limit

We have covered that I'm a horrible nerd, yes?

Good, I'd hate to have to go over all that again.

Simply put, "Break Damage Limit" is an attribute of sorts that you can add to weapons in Final Fantasy X. As you may have already guessed, it allows the weapon's user to "break" the damage limit, which is typically set at 9999 points. This is, of course, very helpful later in the game, and certainly makes your characters more impressive.

However, it is a very difficult attribute to work out yourself--the items required are few and far between. So, most people (myself included) only ever come across it in the Celestial Weapons, which are for the most part ridiculously complicated side quests that aren't worth the trouble.

In the case of Auron and Yuna, though, that is not the case.

And thus I wind up cruising through the latter bits of the game, cackling evilly as I send one fiend after the other to the farplane with brutally overpowered attacks and "Holy" spells. (Tell me what that says, that the most powerful attack in the game by far is white magic spell with that such religious connotations. And that on top of the whole dogmatic-religion-isn't-so-great plot of the game... it makes you wonder.)

... once again, revealing myself to be a total and utter nerd. I am ok with this. As I've said time and time again, if I'm going to make a career out of video games, I'd better darn well have an interest in them.

... I couldn't find a suitable image demonstrating what I'm talking about here, so just have a nice picture of Auron lookin' cool.

I really do abuse this blog sometimes.

15) one mp cost

In that same vein, another weapon add on in Final Fantasy X. Again, pretty self evident for you video gaming types--every magic spell, despite the power, only costs one MP, or magic point.


It makes Yuna a much more useful character, let me tell you. Being able to cast "Holy" at the drop of a hat certainly makes those boss battles a lot easier to deal with.

Well, of course she's not as cool as Auron, but she tries.

16) saguaro no ko

Breaking away from the "inner nerd" theme a bit, this is going back to the "I'm from the desert, remember?" theme. For those of you unaware (which is, I admit, probably most of you) the saguaro is a very significant part of my home's image. I'll ask Wikipedia to help me out again:

The saguaro (pronounced /səˈwɑroʊ/; scientific name Carnegiea gigantea) is a large, tree-sized cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in the U.S. state of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, a small part of Baja California in the San Felipe Desert and an extremely small area of California, U.S. The saguaro blossom is the State Wildflower of Arizona.

I mostly wanted that blurb to help you with the pronunciation; we Arizona natives either know it from birth or learn it on our first day of kindergarten, but the general public tends to be a little confused by our adaptations of the native dialects.

Why? Well, because combining English and Japanese is the hip thing to do nowadays, don't you know. And I thought it made things a bit more interesting, a bit more detailed. I'm always keen on detail, after all.

...well, now you see what happens when you rush me. Shoddy content which is in large merely a testament to my inner nerdy nature. Oh well, you asked for it.

This is Edo, signing off a bit nervous with so much of her true character revealed.

PS- In more real-life news... I have a visa! Yes, that's right my friends, I am now a legal member of the Japanese workforce!

... Just give me another week or so to be a legal, participating member, all right?